


[Meta] That "Love Triangle" Thing

by wanderlustlover



Series: Hawaii Five-0 Season Four Meta [5]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Based on a Tumblr Post, F/M, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-26
Updated: 2014-11-26
Packaged: 2018-02-27 02:09:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2674943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderlustlover/pseuds/wanderlustlover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p></p><blockquote>
  <p> </p>
  <p>    <i>I don't feel like the "love triangle" actually exists on h50. Steve seems jealous, okay, but Cath is clearly not into Billy and he doesn't seem to make any moves on Cath (so far). Why is Steve jealous or uneasy about it?</i><br/></p>
</blockquote>
    </blockquote>





	[Meta] That "Love Triangle" Thing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alemara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alemara/gifts).



> >  
>> 
>> _I don't feel like the "love triangle" actually exists on h50. Steve seems jealous, okay, but Cath is clearly not into Billy and he doesn't seem to make any moves on Cath (so far). Why is Steve jealous or uneasy about it?_  
> 

I have so many problems connected to this Triangle/Whether It Exists/How it’s Showing Up/Not Showing Up and half of me just stares at your questions and goes “Do you really want my honest opinion on that?”

(Mostly not because of you, but because I’ve sworn off writing a lot since H50 broke ability for realistic suspension of belief two weeks ago, and did something I can’t really forgive again. So I spend a lot of time with my fingers in my ears, watching the rating numbers continue to fall every week again.

But. I digress. Your question.)

*

In my opinion there are only a handful of ways I can look at this Triangle so far in the first four episodes, whether it’s existent or not. But mostly at present it breaks down to two bigs ones for me (from about half a dozen viable, juggled options).

**1\. Option 1 — Catherine / The “Thing”**

My biggest problem with Catherine since this season started has been that nearly every single Steve-Cath scene since 4.01 started as revolved around Steve, around Billy, or around the Steve-Billy tension. I mean you can layer over it that it was about her job, but every scene she was in she discussed Billy.

I nearly cheered with pompoms when we got to the scene in the theatre and she didn’t mention Billy once. (You’ll note every other scene of hers in the recent episode fails the Talks About Billy Test because she does each time.)

> _So, option 1 - As your significant other is the only other person in your relationships with you, when your girlfriend cannot talk to you without talking to you about her ex you start to notice. Especially when she pushes you to make the decision about her job, pushes you to admit that you are jealous of her new boss, pushes you to notice she looks great while with him._

(This is, also, expressly an exceeding problem in your relationship when you just recently proved your significant other a) lied to you for the better part of a year about your mother and then b) lied to you about her ex and his job offer, only coming clear because said ex wanted to be honest with you unlike her.

Which would totally wrap into the questioning whether Cath’s being honest with him even now about Billy, or what’s going on with her.)

**2\. Option 2 — Danny / The Best Friend or Partner**

This is my far fetched reason (we can, also, call it The Only Reason In My Head of The Dozen Which Can Be Backed Up By All Three Seasons of Canon History), but it’s the one I whisper to myself at night to keep me from going insane about all the Soap Opera turns lately. 

Steve listens to Danny, because Danny is Steve’s touchstone to seeing reality clearly in places he can’t see straight. The way he spent three seasons blowing off Danny seeing something a lot clearer than him and smacking his head into doorways and brick walls until he was forced to admit Danny was right all along. (Please see about: Bull Frog, Jameson, Jenna, Joe, Max, Doris, etc). 

While Danny (to Steve) is made of sensitivity, verboseness, and a mess of emotions, Steve knows, unwaveringly, that Danny is generally right when he has a passionate opinion about something Steve “just can’t see clearly.” That even when Steve usually outrightly rejects Danny’s theories the first time he hears them, we usually find Steve two scenes later trying to puzzle out if Danny is right. Because Danny so often is and has been.

Danny who has spent three episodes saying two very loud, very terrible things to Steve: 

1\. That Catherine is, literally, perfect for Steve and that Steve loves her. (Our third contender in this game. Doris, Freddie, and Danny. All whom say this while Steve never does.) 

2\. That Catherine cannot be trusted to be alone with Billy or any other person of male orientation. That no matter how much Steve trusts and loves her, she cannot be trusted and that Steve is an idiot for deluding himself into thinking he can. (Which runs side by side with Danny continuing to tell Steve that he made the wrong choice about telling her to take the job.)

> _Thus, Option 2 - Steve is going on the faith of unnumbered past proof about Danny being right when he says something is going on, and seeing ghosts where there aren’t any yet, because he’s conditioned to believe Danny over himself and his very flawed way of feeling/perceiving the situations he’s in. So he is reacting in the way that he thinks he “should be,” looking for the things that “should be” there, and beginning to emote over that as well._

*

That said, I really abhor The Love Triangle, moslty because all of Catherine’s character has been melted down to only this situation for four episodes. Her capture, her job, her choices all keep coming back to Billy/Steve (which we know ends up with them together and with her as a member of Five-0).

I don’t like all the ways it could possibly fall out. Any of the things it will say about Steve, Cath, or Danny as it does so, because there isn’t a situation where all three of them make it out cleanly anymore after all their choices and expressed opinions.

As My Unpopular Fandom Opinion of this post, I desperately would like to save Billy Harrington, too. Because he’s been an absolute angel so far. He was bluntly upfront and honest with Steve. He gave Cath a job that suited her. He’s been a great boss so far as we can tell (even if there was no reason to have him waiting in the parking lot in the last episode, especially if the company and favor would be his/not Cath’s, and the only reason to split them up was to reveal the code names and make Steve go through Billy to get to Catherine). 

I really just want to save him. Especially when I see people in the fandom trash talking him the way they’ve attacked other people for talking about Catherine. It’s a bad plot line, with agressive-subversive feminine depowering, damaging character repercussions (which is a word, I know, I know, that this show doesn’t think exists) for three/four characters, and it’s bringing out another glaringly bad side of the fandom.

I really just want to drop any and all Soap Opera Themes from Five-0 (Not Dead Family Member, Damsels, Love Triangles, and Unconscious Hospital Vigils all), mostly, and go back to the show we all loved. The one that made sense in its cases and it’s over-arcing storylines for everyone, where we weren’t deciphering things happening off screen because they never happened for us to know about.


End file.
